The Weight A Hero Can't Bear Part Two
by FanofTrueLove
Summary: With Clark still missing Chloe is doing everything she can to find him. What she doesn't know is how close he is and how close he's wanted to be to her. A continuation from my first fanfiction so please rate and review


"Oliver," Zatanna said in a hushed tone.

"What?"

"Look over at the monitors," she said. Looking over Oliver became confused; they had been using the monitors all day in an effort to find Clark but to no success. When he saw that they were unchanged he turned back to Zatanna with a confused look on his face. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to be seeing here."

Sighing Zatanna turned his head in the correct direction and he immediately understood why she was being so quiet. Sitting in front of the desks Chloe sat in her chair with her head and arms sprawled out across the surface of the desk fast asleep. After everyone was assigned a task or a job help find Clark, Chloe got straight to work and continued to work without rest. Everyone knew that finding Clark would take more than one day and went to their homes to rest. Seeing Chloe laying their Oliver couldn't help but wonder what was going through her mind, she just found out her best friend is missing and suicidal. What kind of toll does that take on a person?

"Should I wake her up and take her home," Zatanna asked interrupting Oliver's thoughts.

"What? Oh, you probably shouldn't. Knowing Chloe she'll be back here working before the rest of us even wake up."

"Alright but we shouldn't just leave her there," Zatanna said slowly walking up to Chloe's still body. Before Oliver could protest Zatanna used her magic and teleport Chloe onto a nearby couch tucked in with a blanket. Turning around with a look of satisfaction on her face, Zatanna grabbed their jackets and led them out the door.

Only from a few rooftops away Clark stood watching the two of them get in their cars and part ways. Looking back up at Watchtower, Clark quickly X-rayed the place to find anyone else still there. He quickly saw the small skeleton of Chloe Sullivan lying out on the couch and listened to her calm, peaceful heartbeat. The one that he had become so acquainted to having around him when he was in a dark place of his own guilt and misery.

"_Don't worry Clark, this time I'm going to save you."_

These words had drifted through Clark's mind ever since he first heard her whisper them earlier that day. And since the first time he heard her utter them, the sting still had not worn off. Saving a random stranger from danger came naturally to him but being able to protect his own friends and family, that's something he always seemed to fail at. Even though growing up he could save Chloe at least once a week from some meteor freak, he still couldn't save her from the broken hearts he unwittingly gave her.

Aside from trying to save people Clark's origins have always made things difficult in his life. Everyone he knew instantly felt the need to protect him because of his secret and almost every one of them has paid the price for harboring such an incredible secret. Family members, best friends, girlfriends, and enemies; all of them were either dead or gone; it was times like those that Clark wondered if we was cursed. Cursed to hurt the people he loved the most or if this was the price that had to be paid if he were to become Earth's hero. Before whenever a thought like this popped up he would just brush it off his conscience. But having to see Lana walk away and never come, just for the sake of protecting him, something snapped. Then after a few days he realized something he should have years ago, he was in love with his best friend.

At first he thought it was just the loneliness talking and just ignored the feelings he had, but after a short while as he tried to get back to his life he found it difficult. His mind always drifted back to Chloe and whenever she was in head a feeling of hollowness filled him. Like he was only a fragment of himself and Chloe had the other pieces that held the answers he was looking for all his life. But so many things prevented him from running to her even now, _"She'll understand, she has to, we've been best friends since she moved to Smallville," he thought._

"_But she'll think that I'm using her for a rebound or something, she doesn't deserve that. And this will only add more drama to what's going on already and she could be put in even more danger."_ At this point Clark was pacing the rooftop, trying figure out what to do while the storm in his mind and heart raged, pushing himself to the edge of sanity. Conflicting thoughts battled throughout him like gladiators in a coliseum, raging on for weeks now and Clark was getting tired of it. "Perhaps it would better if I just ended this," he said out loud to himself.

"Sorry but we're not going to let you do that Clark," said a familiar voice from behind.

"Yeah amigo, you've put your life on the line for us and now we're going to do the same for you," another voice.

Turning around Clark saw Bart and Dinah, clad in their leather crime fighting clothes and both wearing expressions of mixed joy and relief to find their friend. "Just come with us and we can get you help," Dinah said as she slowly approached Clark. "Emil can get you some help and we'll be with you every step of the way."

"Besides, you can't be this bummed that I beat you in that race, that was weeks ago," Bart said in an attempt to lighten the mood and ease the tension.

Clark just sighed and looked at the ground, trying to find the best words to use, which was proving to be difficult. "Thanks for the concern guys but none of you understand," he said slowly raising his head to meet their worried gazes. "I think I finally know what I have to do to make things safer for everyone. The only reason I came back here was to leave these here for all of you," reaching into his jacket, Clark pulled out a small bundle of envelopes and tossed them to Dinah. As she caught them and started looking over them he said calmly, "I'll be with her so please, don't try and find me."

With that and the confused looks from his friends he started to make his getaway. Using his super speed Clark fired his heat vision at a nearby fire extinguisher and made it explode; causing a cloud of smoke and a force that knocked both of them to the ground. As they fell to the confusion Clark ran from Metropolis all the way to Smallville in a matter of seconds and stopping at his destination. Kneeling down, he let the turmoil inside of him take over, making him release long withheld tears onto the grass. Looking up to read the name in front of him Clark said, "I'm so sorry I couldn't save you, I would give anything to have you here to help me."

Back at Watchtower Chloe's dreams made her stir violently in her sleep. Darkness and destruction was the best way to sum up what she saw around her, standing on the roof of a Metropolis skyscraper all she could see was building crumbling to dust and being engulfed by a growing darkness. Below her the screams of citizens rang out but quickly silenced as they too were taken into the darkness. Seeing it all happen in front of her made her heart beat violently to the point that it just might break out of her chest. Breathing heavily Chloe tried to find a way to escape, anything that could help her but found nothing. She was stranded. The buildings nearby began crumbling one by one, getting closer and closer to Chloe and the pressure of the situation started taking its toll on her. With tears starting to stream down her face she did the one thing that she could do, the only thing that felt right. She cried out his name as loud as she could, hoping that he would save her yet again. "Clark! Please, help me," she screamed, but to no avail. The roof beneath her feet began to shake and fall away all around her, getting ever so closer to her. Then a second later she fell along with it being engulfed by the darkness calling out Clark's name. Holding out the hope that he would still save her.

"Chloe wake up!" Opening her eyes Chloe saw Dinah holding on to her shoulder shaking her awake with a concerned look on her face.

"What? Did something happen," she asked.

"Aside from the fact that you looked like you were having an exorcism? Then, yes something did happen." Turning around on the couch Chloe saw Bart snacking on some granola bars. Not wanting to have to tell the two of them her dream, Chloe out of Dinah's arms and stood turning between the two of them, waiting for one of them to tell her what happened.

Dinah sighed and stood up with Chloe and pulled out the stack of envelopes and handed them to Chloe. Looking over them all Chloe saw each one addressed to a member of the league, all written in Clark's handwriting. "Where did you get these," she asked. Bart stepped forward and explained how they found Clark and told everything he said to them. "Do you know who "she" is," Dinah asked as Bart finished.

"No, but would you two mind explaining what you two were doing out there? I thought you both went home," she asked feeling like something had been left out of their tale.

With a sigh Dinah said, "Oliver thought that it would be a good idea to have at least two of us out patrolling around Watchtower, in case Clark came by to do something like this. Since he did, our job was to follow him and let the others know so we could all try and talk some sense into him."

"We were going to tell you but we wanted to wait a little bit, you know. Finding out your best friend is gone and is looking for a way out in one day isn't exactly healthy for a person," Bart chimed in trying to lighten the mood.

Looking back at the letters Chloe sat down and started looking through them, trying to take her mind off the frustration she felt towards everyone. It was bad enough that she had been kept out of the loop so far, but to hear that were going to try and meet with Clark without her. That was pushing the limit to what Chloe could tolerate. If there was a chance that she could talk her best friend off the ledge, she'd want to know about it. Focusing back on the letters Chloe saw name after name; Zatanna, John Jones, Oliver, Bart, everyone that was involved in the search except for her had a letter addressed to her. "I've already checked through them several times, I didn't see one for you," Dinah lightly grabbing Chloe's shoulder. Under her grasp she could feel her trembling; whether it was from the anger of being kept out of their plans or the confusion of why her best friend didn't have a letter for her, she couldn't tell.

"He's probably still writing yours," Bart said. "I mean, you used to look over all of his stories for your school paper, maybe he's just trying to do a final spell check."

"Not helping." Dinah said as she gave Bart a stern glance. "Go and contact the others, they need to know what's happened."

"O.K., I'll contact Green and the others, be back in a flash."

That caught Chloe's attention, a spark of recognition flew in her mind and she quickly stood, dropping the letters and letting them scatter on the floor. As fast as she could Chloe ran for the door to grab her coat and keys, ignoring the calls from Dinah she made her way out of Watchtower and down to her car. In a matter of minutes Chloe was flying down the streets of Metropolis on her way out of town getting onto the highway to Smallville. _"Green…flash… it has to be her, that's one of the only places we haven't checked yet, he has to be there," she thought. "He said she was one of the first few people he could be himself around, powers and all."_

Pressing harder on the gas pedal, Chloe tried to calm herself and tried to think of a plan of action as she got closer. Closer to the final resting place of the "green flash," Alicia Baker.


End file.
